after I’d cross the lebanese-syrian
border
I stopped pulled out my camera because I
had resolved that the entire time I was
the Middle East I was going to keep a
detailed photographic record of all my
landscapes and have a real collection of
geographic photographs as it turned out
I took about 20,000
when I when I I saw the
description of this photo it just had a
church on the outskirts of our deal when
I saw the photo I I couldn’t believe it
I’m an iraqi-american but my parents are
both Iraqi born bred and instilled the
ideals and the idea of this country in
our head this Garden of Eden I was very
aware of this monastery my entire life
that it existed and that one day I was
gonna go visit it my great-grandparents
kept having daughters and they wanted a
son so they went to this monastery named
after a st. Behnam and they prayed to
st. Behnam and said please give us a boy
please give us a boy and my grandfather
Bram was born and they dressed him up
like a girl when they for it when I took
him back because the evil spirits that
were guaranteeing that my great-grandma
didn’t have a son would be tricked
sadly March 2015
Isis blew it up and my whole family was
was distraught It was as if my
grandfather had died again
these photos give a lot of insight into
these artifacts because so many them are
destroyed and were destroyed by Isis
recently for Americans I think it’s
really useful to look at these photos
and see like this is the beginning of
civilization one of the most ancient
lands of all time I mean we all care
about history and culture and which is
weird like you don’t listen to Drake
you’re you know going to cheese steak
joint and filling be like this is
civilization but it is you know series
known as a credit of civilizations and
walking down the streets of sphere you
see a diverse mix of people you know you
see you can literally see the history
through the ages among senior analyst
and activist bono raised in Damascus the
last time I visited the city was 2011
and then I was detained and I had to
leave and I was never be able to visit
the city again I’m a Syrian American I
was born and raised in Florida but I’m
originally from Damascus in 2011 we were
full of hope after a few weeks from the
uprising or the revolution it evolved
and they invented something called the
how would you translate that the
the flying protest something like that
which is like three four minutes they
they agree to go to that point and to
pretend that for example they are just
walking or eating it starts and
everybody’s chanting and they are
filming and and then like two three
minutes and they say that’s it
[Music]
we didn’t think about this industrial
torture and and killing from the
government and we didn’t expect that
we’ll have one day something called Isis
for example those pictures are very
important to show so people when they
look at them they don’t only see
buildings and stones but also they
realize that there are stories
associated to those places many places
in Turkey always had a shortage of water
we had an agreement among ourselves that
when the water came on we would all go
to the window in the courtyard and call
out
sous-sous so that everybody could run
fill the bathtub this is one of the
strong memories in one of our family
stories we sometimes forget like like
teeth were like very different like
years ago and like when I look to these
photos
I remember ah like some parts of
Istanbul has not been always like a
shopping mall of course I have lived on
my life in Istanbul two years ago I came
to United States into my masters you
should see this place
now there like all these like very chic
breakfast places cafes restaurants it
creates like some sort of class-based
segregation in the city tour should
there is something lost their Grand
Bazaar is like this old Ottoman Bazaar
in Istanbul when you go to it’s like you
rent like few centuries back it’s a
place that carried that thing from the
past but also like transformed itself I
mean I don’t really like Istanbul being
presented like I like a bridge between
like East and West it’s like you can
like show are availablein is like the
east of Turkey and like a woman with
like a miniskirt is like the Western but
it doesn’t work like that like you can’t
like apply these categories you lose
what actually is happening America likes
to focus on the juicy headlines of
violence and radical groups
I’ve been asked if from oil grows in my
backyard I ride camels to school I’m
being completely and genuinely serious
the Gulf countries have a lot to offer
in terms of how they prospered from
nomadic communities and pearl divers
accommodations were not then what they
are now Kuwait had one more or less
decent hotel but the walls of my room
were made out of cardboard I have to
laugh at the super super luxury hotels
that are there now I’m a Kuwaiti of
Palestinian origin I am born and raised
Kuwaiti from a large coin family in
terms of this picture if you were to
look at what it looks like today you’d
see like a lot more skyscrapers every
other Street you can see huge
skyscrapers and then a few corners away
you have old traditional houses you have
the stoop curling through the middle of
the city and what’s really amazing is
the youth actually built an extra sides
to the souk and they’ve called it somos
it’s their own like burger joints and
pop-up stores these are showing me
images that for some reason maybe due to
technology weren’t available for cadiz
to create the
so you know we don’t necessarily have
access to these we’re spend more time
learning about World War 2 in Europe
than we do of our own history so for me
this is amazing to see how far we’ve
gone quite has progressed so much even
if we revert to the way things were
configured we’re not going to lose our
claim to modernity Lebanon is an example
of a country that had difficult times
but has managed to have a society which
is inclusive and very open it and free
and that’s rather unique in the world
let alone unique in the Middle East
I am Lebanese and American and I grew up
in a Lebanon that was very open to the
world very vibrant it was called the
Paris of the Middle East but it had a
number of political problems and it
descended into a long civil war to see
the collapse of a state and the basic
order that you grew up in and thought
and took for granted being replaced by
people with guns in every neighborhood
setting up their own checkpoints seeing
friends of mine getting polarized
picking up guns and maybe shooting at
somebody who might have been a neighbor
and that’s scary since then we’ve had 26
years of rebuilding an inclusive
democratic society
the massive demonstrations what’s known
as the cedar revolution happened around
this statue in 2005 maybe more than a
million or million and have people in a
country of 4 million these moments when
you know citizens by their hundreds of
thousands who are all agreeing on one
unifying passion they really want
something different than the reality
that they’re in but those beautiful
wishes are rarely realized even if you
take pictures of Europe seven years ago
you’d see devastation civil war the
Nazis genocide you know but time moves
on yes Middle East is going through a
very difficult dangerous traumatic
period but history is about change it is
about you know phases and things
developing it hasn’t been always this
way and it’s not always going to be this
way
you
border
I stopped pulled out my camera because I
had resolved that the entire time I was
the Middle East I was going to keep a
detailed photographic record of all my
landscapes and have a real collection of
geographic photographs as it turned out
I took about 20,000
when I when I I saw the
description of this photo it just had a
church on the outskirts of our deal when
I saw the photo I I couldn’t believe it
I’m an iraqi-american but my parents are
both Iraqi born bred and instilled the
ideals and the idea of this country in
our head this Garden of Eden I was very
aware of this monastery my entire life
that it existed and that one day I was
gonna go visit it my great-grandparents
kept having daughters and they wanted a
son so they went to this monastery named
after a st. Behnam and they prayed to
st. Behnam and said please give us a boy
please give us a boy and my grandfather
Bram was born and they dressed him up
like a girl when they for it when I took
him back because the evil spirits that
were guaranteeing that my great-grandma
didn’t have a son would be tricked
sadly March 2015
Isis blew it up and my whole family was
was distraught It was as if my
grandfather had died again
these photos give a lot of insight into
these artifacts because so many them are
destroyed and were destroyed by Isis
recently for Americans I think it’s
really useful to look at these photos
and see like this is the beginning of
civilization one of the most ancient
lands of all time I mean we all care
about history and culture and which is
weird like you don’t listen to Drake
you’re you know going to cheese steak
joint and filling be like this is
civilization but it is you know series
known as a credit of civilizations and
walking down the streets of sphere you
see a diverse mix of people you know you
see you can literally see the history
through the ages among senior analyst
and activist bono raised in Damascus the
last time I visited the city was 2011
and then I was detained and I had to
leave and I was never be able to visit
the city again I’m a Syrian American I
was born and raised in Florida but I’m
originally from Damascus in 2011 we were
full of hope after a few weeks from the
uprising or the revolution it evolved
and they invented something called the
how would you translate that the
the flying protest something like that
which is like three four minutes they
they agree to go to that point and to
pretend that for example they are just
walking or eating it starts and
everybody’s chanting and they are
filming and and then like two three
minutes and they say that’s it
[Music]
we didn’t think about this industrial
torture and and killing from the
government and we didn’t expect that
we’ll have one day something called Isis
for example those pictures are very
important to show so people when they
look at them they don’t only see
buildings and stones but also they
realize that there are stories
associated to those places many places
in Turkey always had a shortage of water
we had an agreement among ourselves that
when the water came on we would all go
to the window in the courtyard and call
out
sous-sous so that everybody could run
fill the bathtub this is one of the
strong memories in one of our family
stories we sometimes forget like like
teeth were like very different like
years ago and like when I look to these
photos
I remember ah like some parts of
Istanbul has not been always like a
shopping mall of course I have lived on
my life in Istanbul two years ago I came
to United States into my masters you
should see this place
now there like all these like very chic
breakfast places cafes restaurants it
creates like some sort of class-based
segregation in the city tour should
there is something lost their Grand
Bazaar is like this old Ottoman Bazaar
in Istanbul when you go to it’s like you
rent like few centuries back it’s a
place that carried that thing from the
past but also like transformed itself I
mean I don’t really like Istanbul being
presented like I like a bridge between
like East and West it’s like you can
like show are availablein is like the
east of Turkey and like a woman with
like a miniskirt is like the Western but
it doesn’t work like that like you can’t
like apply these categories you lose
what actually is happening America likes
to focus on the juicy headlines of
violence and radical groups
I’ve been asked if from oil grows in my
backyard I ride camels to school I’m
being completely and genuinely serious
the Gulf countries have a lot to offer
in terms of how they prospered from
nomadic communities and pearl divers
accommodations were not then what they
are now Kuwait had one more or less
decent hotel but the walls of my room
were made out of cardboard I have to
laugh at the super super luxury hotels
that are there now I’m a Kuwaiti of
Palestinian origin I am born and raised
Kuwaiti from a large coin family in
terms of this picture if you were to
look at what it looks like today you’d
see like a lot more skyscrapers every
other Street you can see huge
skyscrapers and then a few corners away
you have old traditional houses you have
the stoop curling through the middle of
the city and what’s really amazing is
the youth actually built an extra sides
to the souk and they’ve called it somos
it’s their own like burger joints and
pop-up stores these are showing me
images that for some reason maybe due to
technology weren’t available for cadiz
to create the
so you know we don’t necessarily have
access to these we’re spend more time
learning about World War 2 in Europe
than we do of our own history so for me
this is amazing to see how far we’ve
gone quite has progressed so much even
if we revert to the way things were
configured we’re not going to lose our
claim to modernity Lebanon is an example
of a country that had difficult times
but has managed to have a society which
is inclusive and very open it and free
and that’s rather unique in the world
let alone unique in the Middle East
I am Lebanese and American and I grew up
in a Lebanon that was very open to the
world very vibrant it was called the
Paris of the Middle East but it had a
number of political problems and it
descended into a long civil war to see
the collapse of a state and the basic
order that you grew up in and thought
and took for granted being replaced by
people with guns in every neighborhood
setting up their own checkpoints seeing
friends of mine getting polarized
picking up guns and maybe shooting at
somebody who might have been a neighbor
and that’s scary since then we’ve had 26
years of rebuilding an inclusive
democratic society
the massive demonstrations what’s known
as the cedar revolution happened around
this statue in 2005 maybe more than a
million or million and have people in a
country of 4 million these moments when
you know citizens by their hundreds of
thousands who are all agreeing on one
unifying passion they really want
something different than the reality
that they’re in but those beautiful
wishes are rarely realized even if you
take pictures of Europe seven years ago
you’d see devastation civil war the
Nazis genocide you know but time moves
on yes Middle East is going through a
very difficult dangerous traumatic
period but history is about change it is
about you know phases and things
developing it hasn’t been always this
way and it’s not always going to be this
way
you
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